Is the uncertainty principle culturally deranging?
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Thu Aug 2 12:06:14 CDT 2012
On 8/2/2012 12:26 PM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
> Somebody hit me just the other day with some Derrida, in an argument
> about the Moon. And I thought, Derrida? Does anybody even read him
> anymore, I mean since say 1993?
>
> Suddenly with the Derrida everywhere.
There seems to be a feeling about that Derrida may have been taken about
as fart as he will go.
P
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:19 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> On 8/2/2012 11:34 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
>> Perhaps I'm displaying my ignorance, but why the reference to
>> Derrida and Borges. From the quote above?
>
> The gentlemen are associated, respectively, with the problematics
> of knowing and communicating.
>
> That French saying is probably Derrida's best known--at least by
> non-graduates of Ecole Superieure Normale.
>
> Derrida pointed out the limitations of the logocentrism dominant
> in Western philosophy.
>
>
> P
>
>
> P
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Prashant Kumar
>> <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com
>> <mailto:siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I'll see your Derrida and raise you a Borges.
>>
>> P.
>>
>> On 3 August 2012 01:02, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/1/2012 9:47 PM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>> The uncertainty principle as mentioned (as opposed to
>>> used) in postmodernism and elsewhere is not the
>>> physicist's uncertainty principle. If one misunderstands
>>> something aggressively enough it takes on a life of its own.
>>>
>>> Just for clarity, I should differentiate between two
>>> versions of the HUP which have popular currency, and are
>>> (consequently) almost always conflated.
>>>
>>> Some people will tell you that the HUP forbids you from
>>> exactly specifying position and momentum (think of
>>> momentum as how much something hurts when it hits you);
>>> if I have a quantumball, I can't get both pieces of
>>> information at a given instant. A more useful way of
>>> restating this is that I can't /measure/ both
>>> simultaneously. If I measure position, then momentum, I
>>> don't get the same results as if I measure momentum then
>>> position. This isn't true in classical physics.
>>>
>>> In QM we don't know exact values of things like position
>>> and momentum. Instead we work with probability
>>> distributions. HUP tells you that if you know one
>>> quantity with some (statistical) degree of specificity,
>>> then the other quantity is limited in a particular way.
>>> If I give you the position of our quantumball exactly,
>>> you will have no idea of its momentum. This is a
>>> consequence of the way wavefunctions work. It does /not/
>>> mean that our knowledge is imperfect or incomplete. It
>>> means that there is no more there to know. This is the
>>> modern understanding (modulo technical mathematical
>>> caveats).
>>>
>>> Usually something called Heisenberg's (the guy was
>>> prolific) microscope enters the picture at this point.
>>> This thought experiment tries to imagine the actual
>>> /process/ of measurement, and see whether we can find
>>> some physical reason for HUP. At the time of its
>>> formulation, the only known way to measure a quantum
>>> state was to subject it to photons, measure it directly
>>> or indeed just get in there and rustle around till you
>>> got what you came for, leaving the quantum state spent
>>> and shivering under the sheets. The argument was that
>>> the act of measurement, and the requisite interaction,
>>> was responsible for the uncertainty principle: you
>>> changed the state by mucking round with it, so you're
>>> not going to get exact results.
>>>
>>> Problem is, today we know there is a class of
>>> measurements which are known as /interaction-free, /you
>>> get information seemingly for free/, without/ directly
>>> addressing the state/. /And these measurements are also
>>> subject to the HUP. This is a particularly dark kind of
>>> magic and I won't go into it, but if you're interested
>>> check out the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester.
>>> Interaction-free measurements have actually been
>>> performed in a lab.
>>>
>>> So if someone at a party tells you that the uncertainty
>>> principle implies something about our knowledge of the
>>> universe, fundamental inconsequentiality of human
>>> endeavour etc., you should shank them with your
>>> champagne flute, then patiently explain the failure of
>>> Heisenberg's microscope.
>>
>> Thanks, Preshant. Helpful explanation.
>>
>> If people want to talk about the uncertainty of
>> knowledge, they still have "il n'y a pas de hors-texte"
>> to fall back on.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2 August 2012 07:10, Paul Mackin
>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 8/1/2012 4:33 PM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
>>>> Oh der/anging/. Mr. Kohut is certainly /that/. I
>>>> would never use that word though, or any deranged
>>>> derivative there, hem, of. If I did it would be in
>>>> the best sense possible, which for me would be
>>>> exceedingly /good/.
>>>
>>> Vidal claims he was using the word, if not
>>> necessarily in the best sense possible, not the
>>> worst sense either.
>>>
>>> Writing of the author of GR: "Only a physicist who
>>> wrote good prose could tell us if, say, Heisenberg’s
>>> famous and culturally deranging principle is
>>> correctly used in these many, many pages."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> P
>>>>
>>>> Does anybody write here? I just got an email, who
>>>> knows why I'm on their list, I haven't tried to
>>>> publish anything in years, from a place called
>>>> AuthorHouse, subject says Publish today and get a
>>>> no-cost bump-up. So I guess it's free, today, if
>>>> you want to get published. I'm currently stuck on
>>>> page 400 hell with no end in sight. 432. What is
>>>> it about 400? The Moon is 400 times smaller than
>>>> the Sun and 400 times closer to it than the Earth,
>>>> or something. Bumping-up, m
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Paul Mackin
>>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 8/1/2012 10:23 AM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
>>>>> Yes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> but not pejoratively so I hope
>>>>
>>>> P
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> P.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 1 August 2012 23:52, Paul Mackin
>>>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1976/oct/28/plastic-fiction-3/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>
>
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